This is the most inspiring photo I have ever seen, from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
↑ Click the image to see it in high resolution.
There are over 10,000 galaxies in this picture. That’s 10,000 galaxies in a space that “is smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky,” according to Wikipedia.
↑ Video: Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
There are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe.
Simply saying that number doesn’t really mean much to us because it doesn’t provide any context. Our brains have no way to accurately put that in any meaningful perspective.
When we look at this image, however, and think about the context of how it was made, and really understand what it means, we instantly gain the perspective and cannot help but be forever changed by it.
↑ Video: Astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the TV show The Universe
“We’re all connected — to each other, biologically; to the Earth chemically; and to the rest of the Universe, atomically.
“That’s kinda cool. That makes me smile. And I actually feel quite large at the end of that.
“It’s not that we are better than the universe; we are part of the Universe. We are in the Universe, and the Universe is in us.”